“It may turn out to be an oversight not to tell Ernie more about Elsie—if the kid tries to hit on her, or something,” Em said.
It was a warm summer day. Em and I said our marriage vows in Molly’s driveway, where the opportunity to shoot Zim—to spare him from the Vietnam War—had long ago been lost. I was careful not to say the word around Em, but it was anticlimactic that the old patroller’s driveway was once the site of more memorable drama than what would happen at our wedding. No one would come close to choking to death, or otherwise need saving with a lacrosse stick. No one would be struck and killed by lightning. Manchester, Vermont, would not reverberate with prolonged orgasms. In the kitchen, where Em was helping Molly prepare dinner, the old patroller said she doubted Manchester generally experienced orgasms of an unforgettable kind.
I’d been in the driveway with Matthew and the zither boy. I came into the kitchen without hearing how the enviable orgasm conversation had started. Em may have been joking about her orgasms at my mom’s wedding. Em later confirmed she told Elsie and Molly how the zither-meister’s grandson had heard about the orgasms that went on and on. Elsie and Molly were relieved to learn we’d kept the zither kid in the dark. They agreed it was best if the boy didn’t know Em was the perpetrator of the enviable orgasms—“back in the nonspeaking days,” as the old patroller put it.
My coming into the kitchen caused Elsie to change the subject—only slightly, as it would turn out. Elsie wanted Em and me to know we were the first straight couple she’d married in several months. For the last few years, she’d been busier doing civil unions. Vermont was the first state to introduce civil unions, in the summer of 2000—too late for Em and Nora to do it. “Not that Nora would have wanted to do it,” Em always said.
It made Em sad when Nora put down marriage and monogamy—“heterosexual hang-ups,” Nora called them. It was my impression there were more gay men who said this, though some gay women felt the same way. Not Em—she definitely didn’t feel this way.
“If we’re together, kiddo, no fucking around,” Em told me.
“Got it,” I said.
In Molly’s kitchen, immediately after Em and I were married, I didn’t see where Elsie was going with the civil unions. There’d been a backlash to the legislation; opponents of civil unions put up signs and covered their cars with bumper stickers saying, TAKE BACK VERMONT. The Roman Catholic bishop of Burlington, who’d testified against the civil-unions bill, also sent out mailings. “How Would Jesus Vote?” one of the bishop’s mailings asked.
“Thank God Nora is dead—it would kill her to see this shit going on,” Em had said. She didn’t mean it, but I understood her point. By the end of 2004, more than seven thousand couples had entered into civil unions in Vermont. Civil unions would be a boost to Vermont’s economy; many same-sex couples came to Vermont to get them. In 2009, the success of civil unions encouraged the Vermont State Senate to approve same-sex marriage. Governor Douglas, a Republican, vetoed the legislation, but the Senate and the House overrode the veto.
Em and I knew what Nora would have said, because my cousin never tired of saying it: “You can count on the Catholic Church and the Republicans to be the assholes they were born to be.”
Over the years, Em shortened this. “The assholes they were born to be,” was all Em would say.
As Nora had also said, “Nothing will change.” She meant the Catholic Church and the Republicans, but—according to Em—the Republicans would get worse.
Even on our wedding day, civil unions were Elsie’s chosen conversation. I would not have called Elsie a Nora look-alike, but she was definitely a Nora type—masculine-looking, big and strong. A gay woman in her late forties or early fifties, she’d known Nora and Em for as long as they’d all been around Manchester together. Em was right to assume she didn’t have to tell Ernie more about Elsie. Ernie was a savvy Brooklyn boy; he knew better than to hit on a lesbian who was twice his age and double his size.
Molly’s chicken chili was Matthew’s favorite—hence our wedding dinner. We could hear him singing “Puff, the Magic Dragon” in the driveway, for the umpteenth time. The zither kid had won us all over. In the car, en route to Vermont, the Brooklyn boy had entertained Matthew on the zither. They sat in the backseat; Ernie had a wooden lap desk for his instrument. The zither kid knew Matthew’s favorite songs. Matthew loved “Puff, the Magic Dragon”; Em had taught him the words. I’d listened to the two of them, all the way from New York—Em and Matthew singing “Puff,” with Ernie on the zither. Ernie and Matthew were still at it in the driveway.
Three or four hours of “Puff” had depressed me, but not Matthew. At thirteen, he was on the threshold of growing up; Matthew was moving on from make-believe. His time for dragons was running out; Matthew would soon be into more worldly things. Yet I could hear how happy he was, singing “Puff, the Magic Dragon” in the driveway—a song about the end of childhood. “Doesn’t Matthew know it’s a sad song?” I asked Em.
“Don’t cry, kiddo. Matthew will still love us—we’ll have fun in other ways,” Em said, hugging me. We could hear Matthew singing:
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giants’ rings make way for other toys
“It’ll be okay—you two are going to be fine together,” Elsie said, squeezing my hand. She must have noticed I was crying. I’d been wishing Elsie would stop talking about civil unions, not realizing she was working her way back to the orgasm subject.“Same-sex couples have better orgasms, and more of them—I’m just telling you what I hear,” Elsie said, giving my hand a harder squeeze. “But it’ll be okay—you two are going to be fine together,” the justice of the peace repeated.
“Adam is crying because of the song, Elsie—he’s crying because Matthew is growing up,” Em said, holding my other hand.
“Fuck—I thought we were having an orgasm anxiety moment, or something,” Elsie said, letting go of my hand.
“As for same-sex orgasms, kiddo, we’re the exception that proves the rule,” Em told me.
“Enough of Puff—no more dragon!” we heard Molly yelling in the driveway. Matthew stopped singing; Ernie didn’t touch the zither’s strings. “The chili’s ready,” the old patroller told them.
There was no screened-in porch, no backyard, but there was a breezeway between the house and garage with a picnic table and benches. It was a pleasant place to eat on a summer night, if the mosquitoes weren’t too bad and there were no bats. Matthew loved it when there was a bat; what he loved best was to hear the women shrieking. It was an enjoyable but uneventful wedding among warm-hearted people—provided you were able to overlook the eternal sadness of the dragon in the song. And during our dessert—after Matthew had mangled our wedding cake when he was feeding it to us—a bat swooped into the breezeway. It was wonderful to hear how Matthew laughed; he was so happy, and he was only thirteen. Molly and Em, and even Elsie, shrieked—all for Matthew’s benefit, not really because of the bat. These three women were not inclined to shrieking—not counting Em’s earlier orgasms.
Matthew was spending the night at Molly’s; he was already asleep by the time Ernie and Em and I walked back to the Equinox, the hotel where we were staying in Manchester. It wasn’t very late at night when we left the old patroller’s; Molly and Elsie were just starting to do the dishes. Em and I understood it was too early for the Brooklyn boy to go to bed; we led Ernie to the hotel tavern, leaving him there with his zither. The Equinox was a resort hotel; in the summer, it was popular with golfers. It seemed cruel to abandon the zither kid among men in lime-green pants and pink polo shirts; the women were wearing culottes, or something worse. But Em reminded me that it wasn’t Ernie’s wedding night—the Brooklyn boy could deal with the golfers. We had no doubt the zither kid would be taking requests and playing for the fashion mavens.